100,000 SC Democrats had their Vic Rawl votes ‘stolen’?
That’s the latest speculation coming from SC – the Vic Rawl campaign specifically – over Alvin Greene’s surprise US Senate nomination win:
On Friday South Carolina authorities launched a formal investigation into Greene’s unlikely win. The campaign of his vanquished opponent, Vic Rawl, said it too is looking into reports across the state from voters and poll workers who “experienced problems with voting for whom they intended.”
A Rawl campaign spokesman said he believes that the outcome of Tuesday’s election is “statistically impossible” and “South Carolinians would rather be 100 percent right than 90 percent uncertain.” Greene won with about 60 percent of the vote.
Uh, re: those “reports from across the state” – they’re kidding, right? Sounds to me like the Rawl campaign is hinting at some statewide conspiracy to have voters unknowingly pick the wrong candidate.
Greene’s “mental capacity” is also being questioned by another SC Dem:
A South Carolina lawmaker on Sunday suggested that new Democratic Senate nominee Alvin Greene may be intellectually incapable of participating in the general election race.
State Rep. Todd Rutherford told Fox News that he went to Greene’s house to discuss with him how Greene succeeded last week in becoming the candidate to challenge Republican Sen. Jim DeMint in the November election, but he found it difficult to decipher an answer.
“About two questions into a conversation with him, it would become apparent that he is not probably fit to answer the questions befitting a Senate candidate,” said Rutherford, a Democrat. “If he was put into this, then it is a joke that is funny to all the rest of us, but he doesn’t get it — because I don’t know that his mental status is such that he can get it.”
Rutherford said he asked Greene whether his honorable but involuntary discharge from the U.S. Army last August was related to his mental state.
“When I asked him whether they had checked his mental health status, he seemed to suggest that doing so brought about racist implications and other things. He kind of ducked the issue,” said Rutherford.
Rutherford added that based on his conversation with Greene about his military service he got the impression that Greene could have decided to spend the $10,400 needed to enter the South Carolina race, but “I doubt it very seriously.”
To add to all the crazy conspiracy theories floating around about how Alvin Greene was selected by SC Dem voters to be their nominee for the US Senate, state Senator Robert Ford (D) hurled ugly accusations at ‘establishment’ SC Democrats – white and black – last Friday over the fact that he wasn’t chosen by the voters to be their nominee in the Governor’s race:
(CNN) – The combustible issue of race was at play once again in South Carolina Thursday as an unsuccessful African-American gubernatorial candidate griped that Democratic leaders in the state are running the party “like a plantation at the expense of black candidates.”
In a letter [pdf] to members of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus and obtained by CNN, state Sen. Robert Ford complained about fellow black legislators who lined up behind the Democratic frontrunner and eventual nominee, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, who is white.
Though he said he has “love and respect” for Sheheen, Ford said he is “going to be bitter for a long time” about the outcome of the governor’s race and went on to blast younger black legislators who “could care less about civil rights.”
[…]
Ford griped that it was an “outright disgrace” and “a slap in the face to African-Americans in this state” that other black leaders did not support him “for the sake of the party.”
He said white party elders like state Sen. John Land, former party chairman Dick Harpootlian and former Gov. Jim Hodges are running the party “like a plantation.”
“Uncle Tom was alive and well before, during and after the Negro and African-American struggle in this country and obviously he is still alive today,” Ford wrote.
Ford was the SC Dem legislator who last week suggested this in response to why Alvin Greene won the primary:
State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, who lost his gubernatorial bid Tuesday, said race could have played a role. The Democratic primary electorate is majority black, as is Greene, but not Rawl. “Vic Rawl had money, but he didn’t have enough. He wasn’t able to identify himself with black voters,” Ford said. “No white folks have an ‘e’ on the end of Green. The blacks after they left the plantation couldn’t spell, and they threw an ‘e’ on the end.”
So let’s see if I can get all the possible explanations straight:
Greene, a “plant,” got picked as the nominee because of one or more of the following reasons:
1) He’s black.
2) He has an “e” on the end of his last name.
3) His name appeared first on the ballot.
4) In a state where the GOP gubernatorial race was competitive, at least 35,000 Republicans chose a Democrat ballot in order to vote for Alvin Greene so incumbent Senator Jim DeMint, already a favorite for re-election, wouldn’t face a ‘tough fight’ in the general election.
5) There was a statewide conspiracy to ‘steal’ Vic Rawl’s votes away from him and have those who wanted him elected instead unknowingly vote for Greene.
Did I miss anything?
Please feel free to add your list of possible explanations in the comments.